Hare Krishna climate change consciousness

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Archive | May 2014

Jaya-gopala: What is meant by madness? Prabhupada: Just as don’t you see all these people of the world, they are mad? What they are doing? They whole day the cars going on this side, that side. What is the aim of life? They’re mad. Simply wasting petroleum, that’s all. What they’re doing? Huh? Suppose a cat and dog goes this side and that side, yow, yow, yow, and he goes some motorcars. What is the difference? There is no difference because the aim of the life is the same. Therefore they are mad. That is explained. Nunam pramattah kurute vikarma yad indriya-pritaya aprnoti [SB 5.5.4]. Nunam pramattah, pramattah means mad. Prakrsta rupena mata, sufficiently mad. And why? Kurute vikarma. They’re acting which they should not act. They’re acting in a way in which they should not have done. So what is the aim of their acting? Indriya-pritaya, simply for sense gratification. That’s all……So Rsabhadeva says, na sadhu manye, ‘This is not good.’ Na sadhu manye yato atmano ‘yam asann api klesada asa dehah. These madmen do not know that this is the cause of getting this miserable material body. The sufferings of humanity is due to this material body and the cause of vikarma, acting for sense gratification. So this life is meant for acting for liberation, but they are acting for sense gratification. Therefore they are mad. They do not know the aim of life. — Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.27-38 — Los Angeles, December 11, 1968 (our emphases) Unless otherwise cited, quotes are from the lectures, conversations and books of Srila Prabhupada.

The world is suffering, and the changing climate has already given many indications that it will only cause such suffering to increase. Although there are certainly a few skeptics, the vast majority of scientists who have studied the phenomena agree that our increasing temperature is the result of humanity’s burning fossil fuels for several centuries.

A Simple Overview of Climate Change

Perhaps the most common misunderstanding about climate change is that it is a type of air pollution. Climate change is caused by invisible greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the most common of which are completely non-toxic. The greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. These are gases that absorb and emit radiation within the also-invisible thermal infrared range, energy that makes up about half of what reaches the earth from the sun. What is called air pollution, such as urban smog and power plant emissions, may also contain significant amounts of greenhouse gases but has any number of additional visible particulates and other harmful materials that in and of themselves can make people sick.